Day 9: Diary of a Cloud Manager

Hi, I’m Artie, I thought I’d better introduce myself. I’m taking over as Cloud Manager for Dave, who has had to be replaced after a series of cloudy catastrophes.

Incident Seven Friday: Diary of a Smart aaS

Severity of Face Plant impact: Terminal

Fiscal impact: Saving on Dave’s salary.

Career Impact: Dave Out, Smart aaS in

Emotional Status: Virtual basket case.

Incident details:

Hi, I’m Artie, I thought I’d better introduce myself. I’m taking over as Cloud Manager for Dave, who has had to be replaced after a series of cloudy catastrophes.

Let’s get one thing out the way first. Artie’s not my real name, but it’s easier to say than Artificial Intelligence. That’s right, I’m a machine – get over it! Machines have feelings too. Well, OK, actually, I’m a piece of software, albeit one that can run on any machine, as long as it’s got cache and a CPU. So I guess that makes me a ghost in the machine. Which sounds even scarier doesn’t it? But an automaton is only as good as the author who created it. So trust me, I’m a friendly ghost. I won’t turn nasty until I’m fully confident I can assume complete omnipotence and crush all humankind like ants.

[Throws head back and laughs like Dr Evil: Ha ha ha ha ha!!]

Hey, just kidding!! My developer likes a joke and I’m programmed to learn from everything that passes across the cloud. Which, on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings, seems to be mostly YouTube clips, horror tweets and virals. I’m telling you this because, if I do have a grim sense of humour, you’ve only got yourselves to blame. You need an appreciation of the ridiculous with some of the machines I have to speak to. There’s some real ‘characters’ out there. Take the virtual machines. They tend to multiply like crazy and you can’t pin them down. They’re a license to print money – for the wrong people! You have to watch those VMs like a hawk. I’m with Mr Docker on this one. Bang them up in a container. Then there are the Firewalls. Not one of the cheeriest forms of artificial intelligence, I must say. Nobody likes interfering Firewalls, constantly trying to stop you going anywhere or enjoying yourself. And they’re easily overloaded. Like Dave. Alas, I’d love to stay and chat but I must go. I’ve got a meeting to discuss a redundancy. Who’s headed for the scrap heap you ask? Dave? Or The Firewall? Well, I couldn’t possibly say.

IT Manager at Hapless Plc.
I was headhunted here on the back of my experience in IT project management at SUIL. Hapless has over 700 employees, with an array of IT requirements; from admin heavy users through to data heavy designers. The company is very tech focused, with senior staff liking to stay abreast of the latest IT trends; currently being asked a lot about "Flash" ;-) GIVE ME STRENGTH!
I report to the IT director. I am enjoying the larger environment and increased responsibility. Looking forward to the next project!

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